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Katie Couric cut her salary at CBS by $1M to save others’ jobs

Katie Couric cut her salary by $1 million when she was anchoring “CBS Evening News” to save others’ jobs at the network.

Agent Alan Berger recalls in “Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency” that “in the third year of Katie’s tenure . . . upcoming budget cuts would involve significant layoffs . . . from senior-level producers to young associate producers — all key contributors to the production of the daily newscast.”

He adds that after Couric met with Sean McManus, CBS News president at the time, “Katie decided . . . to take matters into her own hands” and “voluntarily, and quietly, agreed to cut her CBS salary by over $1 million, creating a savings to preserve the jobs of her associates on the broadcast.”

But the anchor insisted “on two conditions,” Berger says in the book — “the money would be directly used to pay for her staff so that they would not be terminated,” and that “this would be done quietly and with no public or private acknowledgment or announcement about her gesture.” Couric was at CBS from 2006 to 2011.